OK Leland Palmer, I told you on several occasions where you tried to steer threads towards Methane that you should wait until WUWT had a thread that was relevant – here you go, have at it. – Anthony
One of the indisputable facts in the field of global climate change is that the atmospheric build-up of methane (CH4) has been, over the past few decades, occurring much more slowly than all predictions as to its behavior (Figure 1). Since methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas (thought to have about 25 times the warming power of CO2), emissions scenarios which fail to track methane will struggle to well-replicate the total climate forcing, likely erring on the high side—and feeding too much forcing into climate models leads to too much global warming coming out of them.
Figure 1. Atmospheric methane concentrations, 1985-2008, with the IPCC methane projections overlaid (adapted from: Dlugokencky et al., 2009)
Figure 2 shows the year-over-year change in the methane concentration of the atmosphere, and indicates not only that the growth rate of methane has been declining, but also that on several occasions during the past decade or so, it has dropped to very near zero (or even below) indicating that no increase in the atmospheric methane concentration (or a even a slight decline) occurred from one year to the next.
Figure 2. Year-to-year change in atmospheric methane concentrations, 1985-2008, (source: Dlugokencky et al., 2009)
This behavior is quite perplexing. And while we are not sure what processes are behind it, we do know one thing for certain—the slow growth of methane concentrations is an extremely cold bucket of water dumped on the overheated claims that global warming is leading to a thawing of the Arctic permafrost and the release of untold mega-quantities of methane (which, of course, will lead to more warming, more thawing, more methane, etc., and, of course, to runaway catastrophe).
To some, the blip upwards in methane growth in 2007 (Figure 2) was a sure sign that the methane beast was awakening from its unexpected slumber. Climate disaster was just around the corner (just ask Joe Romm).
But alas, despite the hue and cry, in 2008 the increase in methane, instead of equaling or exceeding the 2007 rise, turned out to be only about half of the 2007 rise. And together with information on from where it seemed to emanate (the tropics rather than the Arctic), it cannot be taken as a sign that the slow methane growth rate during the past decade was coming to an end as a result of an Arctic meltdown.
Here is how NOAA methane-guru Ed Dlugokencky and colleagues put it in their publication last week describing recent methane behavior:
We emphasize that, although changing climate has the potential to dramatically increase CH4 emissions from huge stores of carbon in permafrost and from Arctic hydrates, our observations are not consistent with sustained changes there yet.
The factual portion of their conclusion remains the same, with or without the inclusion of the final word (but it sure was nice of them to throw it in there as a bone to climate catastrophists the world over).
Reference
Dlugokencky, E. J., et al., 2009. Observational constraints on recent increases in the atmospheric CH4 burden. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L18803, doi:10.1029/2009GL039780.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Would someone please explain to me how methane absorbs more heat into the atmosphere than is already absorbed by water vapor.
I found absorption spectra for various atmospheric gasses at the following link.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html
AFAICT, methane has absorption at around 8 um. This seems to be completely within one of water’s absorption bands. The blackbody radiation of the earth is somewhere around there (albeit mostly longer wavelengths).
Looking at the graph, it appears that all the radiation at around 8 um will be absorbed whether methane is present or not.
What am I missing here? At least carbon dioxide can absorb energy in a band where water doesn’t otherwise absorb all the available radiation.
@ur momisugly Roger Sowell
It’s not about decimal places. It’s about common sense.
Yeah, the melting permafrost is just bubbling with the stuff. That is why if you go up there and light a match……………
“CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H2O
Has anyone considered that methane burns?”
Back2Bat
Indeed. That was why, some time ago, The Register pointed out that a really committed Green would carry a small cigarette lighter everywhere, to light his farts….
Gas (oil) companies have spent a lot of time and effort to reduce venting of natural gas (methane) over the last decade or so. Maybe this is a partial explanation of why the rate of increase has slowed?
dscott (14:39:40) :
Has anyone explained adequately the creation of methane calthrates on the ocean floor? I can’t seem to find anything that speaks of CO2 sequestration in deep ocean water to form methane without the inference of decaying organic matter/sediment. Everything I find speaks of breaking down methane CH4 to make CO2 + H2O. http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Methane
Is it possible that under the high pressure on the ocean bottoms that CO2 reacts via some chemcial vs organic process using H2O to become CH4 and liberates O2? (CO2 + H2O -> CH4 + O2)
____________________________________________
I’m sure there are some good references on this that we could find without too much trouble, but my rough understanding is that some bacteria release methane as they decomponse organic material on the ocean floor, and methane acts as a nucleus to water molecules in a structure that freezes at deep-ocean temperatures. By the way, we might speculate that a higher-than-typical amount of energy is being sequestered on the ocean floor at present, bound up in carbohydrate and methane, as high levels of atmospheric CO2 spur photosynthesis in the surficial ocean.
Thank you Roger and Bryan for the clarification.
In police work it is virtually impossible to shoot the target of a moving object.
I always thought the stuff about methane was the most ridiculous part of AGW. Sure there are now millions and millions of cows, sheep etc. But they are feeding on the same pastures that not so long ago fed Mammoths, Woolly Rhinos, Mastodonts, Bison, Aurochs and goodness knows how many millions of other animals that are sadly no longer with us.
MarkB (14:16:15) :
Can there be a thread here without someone asking if they can hijack it?
How about getting your own blog – no one cares about your bright ideas.
Somone rolled out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.
If you don’t care, you should. There is an unending stream of propaganda outlets ready to repeat global warming swill without batting an eye.
The reality is an orphan.
Today mother nature gave our orphan a break in the form of the Colorado Rockies.
Imagine if they make it all the way to the World Series!
God I hope. Go Rockies!
” Michael (14:51:41) :
When objects approach the speed of light they crush themselves to death. Can I say this without sounding stupid?”
No
…rather than “beast”
perhaps?
Terryskinner (16:11:42) :
Mammoths, Woolly Rhinos, Mastodonts, Bison, Aurochs and goodness knows how many millions of other animals that are sadly no longer with us.
That’s our fault too dontcha know.
Andrew (15:26:09) has a good point about reduced natural gas losses. This 2006 Nature letter notes the same slower rise in methane, and quantifies the causes. They say it is mainly due to anthropogenic factors, with wetlands emission adding to the ups and downs.
About those cows. Part of the AGW mystic is the push for “Organic” farming. Which means no more industrial fertilizer (which is made primarily from that nasty old fossil fuel ). Which means that in order to properly fertilize the farm land to grow enough food to feed nearly 7 billion people, we would need an additional 4 billion cows crapping on it. Hmmm. How about that? Steak and eggs anyone? 🙂
Can we plot the methane concentration as well as the curve for mad cow disease? Maybe there is a correlation there?!?
Methane eating bacteria:
http://www.gns.cri.nz/news/release/20071122methane.html
‘ “When objects approach the speed of light they crush themselves to death. Can I say this without sounding stupid?”
“No” ‘
But what if their increased mass causes them to become black holes?
But in any case, behold the products of the government school system.
Liberty anyone?
Methane hydrates/clathrates won’t be released unless either a lot of ocean water gets sequestered in glacial ice (i.e. we get a new ice age to lower sea levels), which will lower water pressure in the deep seas, or else a magma incursion occurs in the area of a sizable methane deposit.
As for arctic warming, a warming from -30 to -29 isn’t going to release anything. The 2007 blip might be related to the large arctic sea ice melting (lot of methane seeping up from the sea floor gets trapped in the ice) but that was a one time release, the ice is reforming, the polar bears are happy, all is well.
One reason for the drop in methane may be that with the reducing in prevalence of toxic pesticides in the watershed, more organisms are able to fill out the ecological pyramid so more plant matter is being processed through to CO2 rather than inefficiently as methane.
As for proxies, frankly I wouldn’t be surprised to see some climatologist to create a “UFO Proxy” that measures the rate of methane release by the number of UFO sightings, on the rationale that most UFO sightings are methane swamp gas releases…
“Methane consuming archaeobacteria and sulfate-reducing bacteria, acting together, are responsible for consuming most of the methane in the world’s oceans, according to a team of microbiologists and geoscientists. “Past research had shown that there is a consortia of these two very different single-celled organisms, and indirect tests indicated they might be the source of methane consumption,” said Dr. Christopher H. House, assistant professor of geosciences at Penn State”.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=5566
I keep asking this off-topic question, but nobody will even yell at me for, being Off Topic.
…
What is the connection between the sulfates-that-are-good-for-the-AGW-problem, and the SO4 that made the acid rain that was killing the trees and all?
tallbloak and Taylor, thank you for the info. So based on experimentation we know that free floating CH4 in high pressure salt water will turn into a hydrate.
Now how does the CO2 become CH4 at these depths? Other than organic, is there any chemical process in which CO2 + 2(H20) (under high pressure) become CH4 + 2(O2)? Are we saying most if not all the free floating CH4 forming these hydrates comes from decaying organic matter?
The Canadian Press represented by reporter Bob Weber ran a piece in the Globe and Mail entitled “bubbling cauldrons of gas” in September and quoted Andrew Weaver stating that the IPCC had not taken Methane in their predictions…
Let’s quote: “But one thing is certain: The fact it hasn’t been factored into previous global warming predictions means forecasts even as recent as the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change are too conservative.
“[Methane] was not considered in any of the predictions at all,” says Andrew Weaver, a Canadian researcher and one of the IPCC authors. ”
Yet it is clear IPCC had projections for Methane, in clear contradiction with Weaver’s comment. Page 37 of the SYR AR4 2007 report, Methane is clearly mentioned. Did the Canadian Press amend their story in any way? Nope.
Mike Lorrey:
There was no large amount of ice melting in the arctic in 2007. What happened was that unusually strong winds from an unusual direction blew a lot of arctic ice (it floats so can be blown by wind) into the Atlantic where it melted. Nothing about the reduction of ice in 2007 was related to temperature in the arctic.
[‘ “When objects approach the speed of light they crush themselves to death. Can I say this without sounding stupid?”
“No” ‘
But what if their increased mass causes them to become black holes?]
Neither one of you understand relativity at all.
I thought my bf was a lot quieter these past couple years. And you can’t argue with figure 2.
As for fewer cows due to the economic downturn. Not so. Ranchers cut down on insemination and keep yearlings for a year instead of sending them to slaughter. Supply and demand is thus equalized and the overall size of the herd is maintained.